I got a free week of game time in the mail at the beginning of fall so I jumped back into Pandaria to check it out. I found the first few days frustrating and confusing, even though I hadn’t been away all that long! My bags were full, I didn’t know where I was supposed to be questing, I couldn’t remember what heirlooms I had and who I’d put them on, it was a mess. After I trudged through those initial few nooby days however, I started to really enjoy myself and I’ve been playing more and more frequently ever since!

I’m not a “pro” now or anything like that but I do have 7 level 90 characters and have at least a pretty good understanding of all things panda. Since Blizzard has made so many game enhancing changes recently and with the price of Mists of Pandaria dropping down to $9.99 for Black Friday, there will likely be quite a few people dusting off their toons and returning to the World of Warcraft. Because of my own experience those first few days after my return to Azeroth, I thought I’d whip up a quick guide for anyone who might find themselves in a similar predicament!

Add-Ons

I’m not a big add-on user myself but there are two that I absolutely cannot do without but did do without for a while when I came back just because I’d forgotten all about add-ons! The first one you should grab is Auctioneer. It will help you clear out that inventory and those overflowing guild banks. Second, grab Alt-o-holic. If you’ve only got one character, you might be able to do without, but if you’re anything like me and you’ve reached the max number of characters for your account (50), this handy add on will make finding heirlooms and whatever else, a breeze!

What Stuff’s Worth

What you’ll want to do when you first log in is to head over to your nearest Auction House and run an Auctioneer scan. This usually takes no more than 10 minutes and it will give you a good idea of what everything is selling for now. You don’t want to end up vendoring something that didn’t used to sell for much, but is now worth 500g or more! There have been a lot of changes and being aware of at least some of them should keep you from missing out on potential profit!

Take Inventory

Log onto each of your characters on your main realm. Open each of their banks and guild banks and all of that information will be stored in Alt-o-holic. Then you can just search for what you’re looking for in the alt-o-holic window, crafting mats, heirlooms, consumables, etc, and it will tell you exactly which character it’s on without you having to log onto one after another searching!

Get A Guild

If you’re no longer part of a guild, it is worth it to find yourself a new one! There are bonuses to experience, mount speed, and lots of other things that can give you an edge while leveling! Try to find a guild that is at least level 6 because of the perk Fast Track, which will give you a 10% bonus to experience. Of course keep in mind that for a guild, the higher the level, the more perks you’ll have access to! You can ask in trade chat or open the Guild Recruitment panel (J) to brows through guilds and send out up to 10 membership requests.

Clean Out That Inventory

Thanks to Auctioneer you should now have a decent idea of how much something sells for just by mousing over it. Go through and cleanse your inventory. Try not to focus too closely on how much gold you can make, but on getting stuff out of the way so you can get to leveling through the new content! Try not to be a hoarder, like me! My bags are always full and it’s so irritating.

Tip : When cleaning, keep an eye out for gear that might be in demand for transmogs! I had a couple Vanguard Breastplates in one of my guild vaults and those things sell for 11k gold a piece now!

Visit Your Profession Trainers

Professions now max out at level 600 so don’t go picking herbs if your herbalism is still at 525/525! Nothing’s worse than wasting precious skill points!

Hero’s Call Board

Check out your nearest Hero’s Call Board (located in the major cities) to find out just where you should be questing. It will send you to the appropriate zone for your level.

Spend Your Talents

Don’t worry, spending your talent points is nothing like it used to be! You only get 6 points to spend by level 90, so reading through the possible abilities and picking what you want is rather painless! If you’re having trouble though, check out a site like maxdps.com to figure how best to spend your points.

Grab Some Glyphs

Glyphs can really help while leveling, especially some of the major ones. Check the Auction House to see what’s available for your class. Once you’ve grabbed a few you can manage your glyphs by clicking the tab at the bottom of the talents panel (N).

Heirlooms

There are now so many heirlooms available from so many different places! You can also upgrade some of your existing heirlooms to go all the way to level 85. Check out Wowhead’s Heirloom List to find out how best to go about getting yourself some!

Hopefully some of you find this helpful! I know I would have appreciated checking out such a list when I first came back!